Greenland Telescope (GLT): Commissioning and Operation

Satoki Matsushita^1*

¹Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Satoki Matsushita, email:satoki@asiaa.sinica.edu.tw

The Greenland Telescope (GLT) project is to investigate black holes and their immediate vicinity with imaging the shadows of super massive black holes (SMBHs) using the millimeter/submillimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry (mm-/submm-VLBI) technique together with other mm/submm telescopes all over the world. US National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a 12 m ALMA North America prototype antenna to the group led by the ASIAA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). The telescope was retrofitted for the extreme cold environment of Greenland, and assembled at the US Pituffik Space Base, located at the northwestern region of Greenland. We are currently commissioning and operating the telescope at there, and preparing for the traverse to the Summit of Greenland. In this talk, I will present the history and the current status of the GLT from instrumentation point of view, and describe our future plan.

Keywords: Black Hole, Millimeter-/Submillimeter-wave Telescope, Very Long Baseline Interferometry, Commissioning, Operation